July, 2012

Man, you’d think reporters would give it a rest with asking retired fighters like Randy Couture whether or not they have the itch to come back to fighting. I mean, Couture hasn’t fought since April of 2011 when he took on Lyoto Machida at UFC 129 for crying out loud. On second thought, I guess that’s also the last time Georges St. Pierre fought, so…

In any case, we’ve been enjoying a series of video interviews with “The Natural,” done by MMAFighting’sLuke Thomas recently. In the first installment, Randy talks about his decision to retire, and how well it’s sitting with him these days as he jets around the world making blockbuster and straight-to-video films alike, all while running a top MMA gym.

Perhaps most interestingly, Thomas references the just-retired Kenny Florian, who recently spoke about the difficulty of adjusting to no longer being able to identify himself as a fighter, and asks Couture about how he defines himself these days. Is he a wrestler? Is he a fighter? Is he a coach? Is he the Scorpion King? Couture, per usual, gives a thoughtful and earnest response. Give it a look, and check out more from this revealing interview series after the jump.

(Say, that reminds me of a joke: What’s bloodshot, greasy, and smells like cologne?)

According to a new report from MMAJunkie, the Las Vegas District Attorney’s office has decided not to file domestic violence charges against veteran UFC ring girl Arianny Celeste. “After our review of the case, we found that there was insufficient evidence to move forward,” said Tess Driver, executive assistant to Las Vegas district attorney Steve Wolfson.

After being arrested on May 26th following an altercation at the Wynn hotel in Las Vegas — and spending the entire day in jail — Celeste claimed that she was simply defending herself when her boyfriend Praveen Chandra choked her twice; Chandra denied Arianny’s version of the events, and claimed that Celeste kicked him in the nose in a limousine. But then you look at their mugshots and all you see is two tired people who should have left the club at midnight, instead of partying to the point of going “crayyyy ha hey bay bayyy.” With no visible injuries to speak of, it seems the Las Vegas authorities decided to just chalk this one up to drunk people acting stupid, or stupid people getting drunk, or both, whatever.

Requests for comment have not been answered by Chandra. Seriously, we found his e-mail address online a few weeks ago and sent him a note about this whole mess, but nothing. WE WILL NOT BE IGNORED, PRAVEEN.

Alright, so Cung Le‘s UFC debut against Wanderlei Silva last November didn’t turn out the way many of us thought it would. (Getting your ass kicked by King Mo on a daily basis isn’t the best way to prepare for a fight, it turns out.) Nevertheless, the former Strikeforce middleweight champ is returning to the Octagon for redemption at UFC 148 on July 7th, where he’ll be facing former contender Patrick Cote. In honor of the upcoming bout, here are 11 GIFs of Cung Le doing what he does best — throwing wild spinning shit and tossing people on their asses. Check ‘em out below, and let us know how you think Le vs. Cote will shake out…

Yes we have announced The Super Fighter (Ed note: Nice, Raj. REEEEAAALLL original.) MMA reality show. Auditions are now on pan India.

In addition, Kundra discussed some of the intricacies of the show’s format with the Hindustan Times:

The show will go for 50 days and each week people will vote for who they want to see fight on a Friday night. The fighters will also be given tasks each week.

Given the abysmal numbers this season of The Ultimate Fighter Amurica pulled in, along with the fact that SFL are, you know, hemorrhaging money and all, you’d probably think that this was a boneheaded move on their part. To which we’d partially agree with you.

On the other hand, part of the reason SFL is seeing such paltry attendance numbers is due to the lack of MMA awareness that currently exists in India. Some of the bigger named celebrities who attended SFL’s first event even admitted afterward that they were under the belief that MMA was something along the lines of the WWE, and were abhorred to learn otherwise. A MMA based reality show, however, could easily help stir up some newfound interest in the sport as the first season of The Ultimate Fighter did here in the good old U.S of A.

Joe “Daddy” Stevenson’s return to the cage was foiled by everyone’s favorite not-really-gay gay porn star Dakota Cochrane last night, who submitted “Daddy” with a rear naked choke. For Stevenson, this is obviously a disappointment. His losing streak has reached five in a row now, his skills have seemingly peaked, and thanks to Ian McCall he doesn’t even own the best patriarchal nickname in MMA anymore. Though to be fair, that was probably because no one else had one. At any rate, he’s not going to reach the big time again, as the sport has passed him by. It’s a shame, but at least he can always hold on to the fact that his face will always be remembered. Well, at least the parts of it that were not obscured by his own blood.

We don’t have an easy way to break this to you, so we’ll just come out and say it: Afghan knockout artist Siyar Bahadurzada has been sent to live with our friend who owns a farm upstate. He’ll be able to frolic in an open field to his heart’s desire, and he’ll have plenty of friends to play with. Because of this, he won’t be fighting at UFC 149 against Chris Clements.

Just kidding, he’s out with an undisclosed injury. What, you actually believed your parents when they told you your dog was living on a farm upstate? That’s adorable.